


Learning to Speak

by rosecat13



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:44:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecat13/pseuds/rosecat13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lauren Mallard would not ever be a Voice. But that didn’t stop her from trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning to Speak

She wasn’t born with the gift. She didn’t have a voice that could entrap ears, no one wanted to hear the honey-ochre of her voice slide over their eardrums; her voice wasn’t even that melodious. It wasn’t like the Voice of Desert Bluffs with his cheer, his vocal cords braided elegantly, words tripping over themselves like water over smooth river rocks. Her words were meaningful but they were set in stone. She was not the Voice of Desert Bluffs.

Lauren Mallard would not ever be a Voice. But that didn’t stop her from trying.

She had always loved radio. Gathered round when the world was still dark and dangerous, smoky voice rising from the small radio her family owned. It curled its tendrils around her ears and her heart. She could listen for hours, and then hours more; her favorite was the weather. She’d be found on the berber carpet, curled around the wooden radio that seemed to fit so well into the curve of her chest. Her hands clenched, knuckles white, to the dark wood of it. Desperate.

It was not meant to be. Despite how she tried, she had not been born a Voice. She came to terms with it. Lauren threw herself to other pursuits, keeping her dreams tucked behind a stone in the back of her mind. Shut away her visits to the radio station, the times the management would laugh, look at her, sensing her inability. Her lack of Voice. How her mother and father had worried for her, because they knew that these dreams were dangerous, and they’d eventually break the girl’s heart. The feeling of a lump getting caught in her throat when she sought out other work, voice acting work, for TV ads and other radio stations, and it had all come up empty.

Her neighbors regarded her with distaste, her parents gave up attempting to gently nudge her to other studies. Lauren tried other jobs, other careers. None of them made her happy. In her heart, she pursued something that she wasn’t meant for. It was nothing personal, of course. She simply wasn’t a Voice. She would never be a Voice. But somewhere along the way, Lauren had forgotten that. And she was blind to anything but her goal.

Her long nights were punctuated with reciting news reports in front of the mirror, recording them, playing them back. She listened to the cadence of her own voice, tried to pick out where she was going wrong. Tried to rid herself of the nasally tone that came so easily, lowered her vowels, cleaned her consonants until they shone. She would make herself the best Voice that she could, during the nighttime hours, when the moon was brightest, when the shadows were cast long, and longer.

But then the world went hollow, translucent, and everything was engulfed. And Lauren saw in this perfect, blinding light, new hope. No, she could not be a Voice, with their expertly crafted words and legato sentences, but she could work for someone perfect. She could be a part of perfection, still.

She smiled now. There was that, at least. There wasn’t any more wanting, there wasn’t any more “if” or “but”. There wasn’t any more possibility that she would do anything but the thing that utilized her full, remarkable potential.

But then Strexcorp led her to the studio of Cecil Palmer, the Voice of Night Vale.

She had cried, the night before. Or the now common substitute for crying, which was laughing, laughing until her stomach and chest begged for release, laughing until tears streamed down her face, laughing until she could feel the pain in her heart that crying would have soothed. Laughing, because there was no other, anymore. Crying? Frowning? She can’t remember how to make those happen, the muscles in her face twitch, twist, but she can’t make it happen in the mirror, anymore. Memories came flooding back, those hopes and dreams, and here she was again, walking up to a radio station’s door. And maybe… it would be different this time.

She got a taste of what it could be like, bent over a microphone that was not hers, claiming the weather for her own. Her smile widened. A rock broke loose in her dam of want and she saw it all before her. She saw the station. She saw the man, his face screwed into a look of disgust. Looking at her. Hating her.

She turned away and looked at the microphone, instead. Lauren bit her lip and smiled until that lip bled, her blood dripping down her chin, until she knew, she knew she had to have it.

And she did.

She was ruthless, turned from innocent and wanting to bloody and having by a god that smiled with all his teeth showing. She would have chased Cecil out of that station with a knife, a gun, or something far more sinister. But the Smiling God had ways. And Lauren was more than willing to cooperate, if that meant getting to that microphone.

She sat in the chair, with Kevin at her side. Working with the Voice of Desert Bluffs was a big deal; she understood this completely. She inclined her head, pushed her hair back to tuck little flyaways behind her ears. But it was an honor for him to be speaking with a self-proclaimed, self-made Voice. The Voice of Strexcorp. Smiling into the void to which she was speaking, a bright, humming void, a void that gave second chances, a void that understood.

The Smiling God had smiled upon her upon their meeting, when she saw through everything, when her misconceptions had become transparent. She had seen the love that he would give her, how much he expected of her, if she were to fulfill the role that he gave. The role that she wanted.

The world still turned their noses up at her. They hated her. She knew that. She wasn’t where she was supposed to be, she was filling a role that she wasn’t meant for. Not naturally. She hadn’t even been gifted Voice by the Smiling God. He had just opened a door to her. At first she simply feigned ignorance, pretending not to notice their harsh words and harder stares. She smiled wider, and wider. Sweeter, sweeter, her voice climbing higher. She spoke no ill of anyone. She expressed mild frustrations, but kept everything under control. She never mentioned herself on the radio, aside from her former title. The people did not care about her family. About her path to her present position; no. They just wanted her gone.

 All of their hatred, all of their useless sneering just made her clench her fists. Let them insult and let them come with their complaints. The forest never said anything kind to her, no citizen thought well of her. Nature and man were against her, together, and all she had was faith and well-trained vocal cords. Every time he had the chance, Kevin would fight against the light in his own ways. She doesn’t care that he made jabs at her, telling her that she didn’t belong. That he let her know, in his own way, that he hated her just as much as everyone else did.

She didn’t care. She was finally where she was supposed to be.


End file.
